


Have Me As Your Promise

by returntosaturn



Series: Back on the Map [5]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Eloping, F/M, Scotland, Wedding, mild spice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 17:00:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10903644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: They return to London five days after the wedding, as planned, with Jacob and Queenie sent off to Florence. The timefinallyalone again wrings an idea out of them that isn’t so much discussed as it is decided, one evening when they come together, new whispers and new promises heavy in the air.// Part of the Back on the Map series, taking place after the epilogue.





	Have Me As Your Promise

_Five years later…_  
-

Jacob is one year free of _Le Cordon Bleu_ when they marry. The entire affair is detailed and orchestrated under Queenie’s eye. He is happy, almost proudly content to see her enthusiasm for picking colors, flowers, and the location. He gives his opinion when asked, but allows her to see the details through. Tina, on the other hand, begins with the best intentions, and then slowly unravels at being consulted on cake flavors and _this shade of pink or that_ while Newt stays to the fringes. He finds it less intrusive to watch it happen, happy to host Tina’s hour-long, long-distance phone calls as she harriedly paces the length of his flat. _Their flat,_ he sometimes has to remind himself.

He worries on the publication of his book instead, flooded with meetings and proposals and edits. A deal is made three months before they are set to travel to New York for the wedding, leaving him too busy to do much else.

The book is picked up by a well-known publishing company that focuses in textbooks, and he finds that a brief rush of pride fades to the astonishment that they actually want to work with him at all. She soothes him throughout nights of tedious edits, and her wherewithal to support both him and Queenie’s pendulum of decisions makes him wonder at her in an all-new angle. 

Five years ago, after her journey had ended, she and her sister both returned to New York but Tina found that living so far away was too inconvenient and too expensive in the long run than actually obtaining a visa and settling in London with him. Newt wrote, Tina found work, and they traveled often. Jacob planned to open a bakery in the City after he finished his schooling, and therefore Queenie stayed to wait, and the two parred visits between themselves.

Tina knows that part of her sister’s eagerness in achieving a picturesque wedding day has to do with the fact that they’ve been waiting so long and spent so long apart, so she tries her best to indulge her with some level of patience.

Tina and Newt return to American soil together a week before the date, to arrange a suit that matches the rest of Jacob’s attendants, and Tina is swept into last minute preparations with her sister while the men keep their distance, confined to the safehaven of the bakery. 

The date comes, bright and sunny and warm. They’ve decided to marry on a converted estate in upstate New York, where things are green and quaint and untouched. Everything is in bloom for spring, and Tina knows that Queenie could not be happier about the timing. There’s three other friends chosen as bridesmaids, and they all corral together in a suite to get ready. Tina is worn and frazzled by the end of the morning, and steals to an empty bedroom in the mansion for a moment of calm before the entire wedding party is set to convene for photos.

Newt meets her there, knocking gently to announce himself before entering. He’s never seen her in a dress, not even a skirt, and the sight makes him grin all too widely.

Queenie has chosen a soft champagne for the color, and it sets Tina’s skin to a warmer tone, a beaded shift that glitters subtly in the light, falling just above her toned calves. Her hair has been set with a curling iron, rather than brushed into some manageable shape. She’s even allowed one of the girls to help with a light layer of makeup. She wobbles only a little on her heels, leaning her weight uncomfortably onto one leg when she turns to face him, planting her hand at her waist, silhouetted against the window. She gives a uncertain groan under his gaze, and he smiles.

“Go on and laugh,” she says, plucking at an errant curl, her eyes bigger and somehow brighter under the lace of mascara, still beautiful autumn brown that makes him think on some land, some place far away rich with color and warmth and life and exotic species.

“No. You’re beautiful,” he says honestly, easily, and she gives another uncomfortable noise.

“Thanks. You look nice too.” She slumps a hip against the edge of the queen bed set at the center of the room with all the posture of a New York native; still his willowy, reticent Tina.

He reaches, curling his fingers under her chin like stroking some wild animal into ease, and gives her an approving hum. He steps into her space, bringing her to sit fully against the edge of the bed.

“You look nice in a suit,” she muses, while he tucks his fingers into the roots of her hair, then catches his lips again.

“You look nice in a dress,” he replies, vaguely aware that they aren’t exactly talking about their current outfits, and tries very hard not to think about what tone her skin might take in white.

He takes her hand after a few more stolen kisses, a few more stolen whispers, and leads her for the wide, grandiose stairway. If the light layer of her lipstick is smudged when they meet the rest of the wedding party in the garden, no one says anything.

The ceremony is beautiful and tender, all the things it should be. Jacob’s family is a warm and loud bunch, and those that have not yet met Queenie take to her immediately for the enigmatic, charming beauty she is, and Tina smiles to see her surrounded by so many that already love her, already call her family; something she knows she’s wanted for so long.

Newt brings twin glasses of champagne to where she’s already toed out of her heels at the head table, and she stares maybe a bit too long, a bit too openly at their hands when he passes her a flute.

“Everything alright?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, studying his fine-boned fingers. “Just thinking…”

He smiles, holding her gaze for the barest of seconds before taking a sip, and she knows he feels it too.

-

They return to London five days after the wedding, as planned, with Jacob and Queenie sent off to Florence. The time _finally_ alone again wrings an idea out of them that isn’t so much discussed as it is decided, one evening when they come together, new whispers and new promises heavy in the air.

She goes out the following morning by herself, while he calls around for an officiant and arranges their travel. She comes home earlier than he expects with a dress wrapped in a zippered garment bag, a new box Converse sneakers, and teases that he isn’t _allowed_ to see. They’ve got to keep at least one tradition in all this, she insists.

A simple silver band is not hard to find, and it is no more than he'd want in the first place. His hands tremble around hers when he helps her to try a simple, solitaire ring and tears shine briefly in her eyes before she pronounces to the salesman that they'll take it.

Their train for Scotland leaves early the next day. Before dawn. It's cheap, and relatively empty. Tina dozes in his lap, and his fingers stroke the heavy, fine weight of her hair while he watches the sunrise from the train’s window.

He has found them a tiny cottage somewhere in the countryside. A simple, five-bedroom house that’s been converted into a inn.

They deposit their bags and hike and explore the area in the cool grey of noon, on until dusk. Until their skin is wind-weathered and numb and they return to be treated to a meal of heavy soup and crusty bread by the innkeeper and his wife.

Their bedroom fills with the cadence of content sighs and pleased little moans until they drift to an easy sleep. 

The morning sunrise glows beautiful gold and hazy mountain purple, and hangs a kind of solemnity in the air. A calmness. 

He irons his shirt while she showers.

They help each other to dress under shy, giddy glances. His waistcoat, jacket, and trousers bear a dated cut, but it suits him, smokey tweed bringing out the warm tones in his eyes and hair. She wonders where he found it, how long its been hanging unworn until now. She buttons his shirt with utmost care, drawing her fingers over his heart, as if she were anointing him, before she closes the fabric over freckled skin. He dons a skinny bow tie, trying at it in the mirror while she lays out her dress.

She slides bare, willowy limbs into the length of white fabric, and a flash of solid, undiluted awe, floods through him. The moment is somehow sensual, purely intimate as he watches her from his reflection’s shoulder. 

Her dress is long, soft chiffon over some opaque, weightless fabric that falls around her slim figure in one sweep. A sheer lace overlaying the bodice gives a view of her pearly skin, plunging nearly to her navel. This time it is not the dress itself that thrills him, but the idea that it she wears it as a mantle meant to represent her pledge. Her promise. A garment she has chosen herself and will wear only this once, to bind herself to _him_.

His hands are steady when he zips her into it, and she gives a quiet, appreciative hum when he presses his lips to the nape of her neck.

Around ten o’clock, the innkeeper’s wife comes to knock tentatively at their door with a bouquet of wildflowers, yellow and cobalt and pink, and Tina embraces her tearily over the threshold.

She helps curl Tina’s hair, twines in a few of the flowers, while he works at his cufflinks and they leave with hugs and waves and heart-full thanks before crowding into a borrowed farm truck to meet their officiant in a valley between watchful, jutting mountains.

They read their vows, written on notebook paper from one of his ragged journals and she is helpless but to cry at least a little when he speaks of fortunate journeys and proper timing. The rings are exchanged with sure hands, and he doesn’t let her go even as the officiant declares their new name.

They picnic alone, bread and cheese and tart berries brought from the inn. Rich, earthy wine poured into glasses he nicked from the kitchen. She folds the gray cardigan she brought to shield her shoulders beneath her, sitting crosslegged in the pool of her gown, flowers laid aside her, noble and primally feminine and completely _his_. 

When they return, the inn has gone emptily silent. They make straight for their room and the sunset paints her skin pearlescent when she stands before him, a pillar, a goddess. Expectant eyes and the smallest of smiles. He slips the straps of her dress from her shoulders, plucks the flowers from her wind-tangled hair, leaning in close to bury his nose deep in the scent of her.

She is herself again, ornamental layers removed, but no less ethereal. When he is equally as bare and his mind and body are filled with handfuls of her, she arches into him and with him, as if they are cut from the same share of earth.

She feel wholly worshipped and _loved_ , as he takes his time in touching her, crooning praise into her skin, and even when he dips to lave his affections between her thighs, it is a slow, untamed expression that leaves her skin blazing and her thoughts supremely rooted in what they _are_ now. What they have pledged themselves to be.

In the early haze, she blinks awake to simply feel the press of this new life, new company, new revelations, things that can’t be refined or spoken, but rather beheld and kept. She curls against his side, cheek pressed to the steady beating drum of his heart, and waits for him to wake.

-

Their life is a return, and in some ways a renewal. Things remain mostly as they were before. But there’s something _else_. Something _bigger_. She doesn’t know how to define it, how to set it in a frame of mind that is observable and understandable. Life feels easier, brighter, steadier. She cannot, does not, want to remember life without the simple ease of his nature beside her. The lens through which he sees the world, helping to bring hers to focus.

A month in, he leaves for a conference in Brazil, but she stays behind. Taking more time away from work won’t fit into her schedule, after the two weeks she skived for the wedding, and so she holds down the fort for him. He’s two weeks gone when she realizes, at the end of her shift at the bookshop, in the middle of her quiet, solitary dinner, that something is amiss. Something _specific_.

She doesn’t feel worried, not even unsure. The new knowledge doesn’t seem to phase her, and maybe, if she lets it, it makes the few days until his return feel shorter. She spends one morning, quiet and still in their bed, tracing at her stomach and _thinking_. Nothing in particular. Nothing that can be solidified. Its more hoping than thinking, but she indulges it, lets it steal a few minutes before its time to rise for her shower and slip back into the now.

By the time he returns, she’s already confirmed the news. But he arrives grumpy and unsettled, at midnight no less, lurking into the flat with a groan. So she saves it.

The morning is yellow-gold, bright through the naked window. She wakes him with learned lips at his stomach, his side, feeling the gentle yaw of his snores dissolve to shallow breaths.

“How’d it go?” she asks, wriggling into the ring of his arms when his eyes blink open and he sets her with a smile.

“Ghastly. I missed you.”

“Well, I’m here now. You’re here now…” It isn’t an offer so much as a simple observation. She strokes at his hair when his hand flies under her nightshirt to stroke the underside of her breast.

She shifts, settling him with a clipped smile, elbow against the mattress and chin in her hand. She waits for his gaze, watching, testing the moment.

“What is it?” He kisses the underside of her chin.

“There’s something I need to tell you…” she says.

“Tell me…” he insists. He looks unmoved, still staring up at her as if she were some fine-cut sculpture, reaches up to thread a hand through her hair, but his tone is laced in possibility. She decides she’s imagined it, and takes a steady breath.

She finds a loose thread in the tangled sheets, toying at it before she opens her mouth to speak.

“We’re going to have a baby.”

His eyes alight first, then his brows twitch upwards, and a smile blossoms, small and sweet and all for her. “We are?”

She laughs, craning her head to wipe at sudden tears. He sparks upright, hair an unruly mess atop his shocked expression. She laughs all over again at the sight, watery and hiccuped until he twists and balances his weight over her, on hands and knees in one quick motion.

His gaze is unhidden, unabashed, twinkling in anticipation and something _wilder_.

“A baby…” he purrs, kissing her wet cheek. “That means…Tina, we made a baby… _that night._ ” 

He finds her hands, curling their fingers together, sitting up astride her.

“Yes. Or the night before.” Her deep-seated pragmatism doesn’t fail her even now, but his joy seems unphased.

“A baby.” He draws out the phrase in reverence, letting it weigh on his lips. “With you…”

He returns to her, bending to kiss her, to breathe his exuberance into her skin until the sun inches higher, casting long rays across the room. They spend the day here, in dedication of the moment, in relearning and revisiting, and it is not lost to either of them that it is the fate of lucky meetings that have made this.

**Author's Note:**

> [@allscissorsallpaper](http://allscissorsallpaper.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
